


Puzzle

by bayreef



Category: Kuroko no Basuke | Kuroko's Basketball
Genre: Fluff, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-12
Updated: 2016-02-12
Packaged: 2018-05-19 20:38:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,426
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5980324
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bayreef/pseuds/bayreef
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It was on their fifth meeting, feeling suddenly too close and too vulnerable, that Furihata blurted it out before he could stop the words spilling from his mouth.</p><p>“Have these outings been, um, dates?”</p>
            </blockquote>





	Puzzle

**Author's Note:**

> as i haven't quite finished the series yet, some things might not match up with canon. please enjoy anyway! comments and kudos are greatly appreciated.
> 
> find me on tumblr @ bayreef ;)

On their fifth meeting, Furihata was alarmed to notice just how comfortable he had become in Akashi’s presence. He now knew not to make any sudden movements, and that walking in front of Akashi only served to annoy him. Instead, Furihata walked in pace beside him on their way to the antique store, but this time he felt like he was allowed much closer than before. Their elbows brushed waiting at traffic lights, and Akashi kept guiding Furihata through the busy streets with a warm, gloved hand on his shoulder. They were making progress in this bizarre relationship, or whatever it was.

“I’m interested in you and would like to meet again. I presume this is mutual?” Akashi had said to him on their second outing, this time planned beforehand. He was holding a calligraphy brush and analyzing the finish of the wood from which it had been made. They had met for lunch and followed up with a stop at the stationery store, Furihata nervous all the while. 

He wasn’t sure what Akashi meant but nodded. Part of him was convinced that he didn’t have an actual say anyway, but he was surprised to find that he really didn’t have a problem with it. There was something, dare he say it,  _ nice _ about spending time with Rakuzan’s intimidating captain. And with months passing in between each meeting, it was almost as though he dreamed the whole thing up.  

Neither felt the urge to talk about basketball around each other, and Furihata was sure he would get lost in Akashi’s complex tactics anyway, so they discussed ordinary things. The weather, school, television, the occasional novel. They talked about Furihata’s aunt, as she was his reason for visiting Kyoto every few months, though it soon became clear that Akashi would answer very little about his own family and Furihata knew not to push the subject. 

What kept the conversation going otherwise was a mystery to him. He was honestly surprised that Akashi didn’t seem irritated or strained by their mundane exchanges. Once Furihata found himself able to relax around Akashi, he was content with the silence that was commonplace between them as well. When they were outside, Furihata liked to stare up at the night sky, arms crossed behind his head, and Akashi liked to stir his tea, humming lightly to ripple its surface, when they were inside.

The first meeting had been a coincidence, an awkward, abrupt thing in a shopping district. Furihata was staying with his aunt, who was to have surgery soon, and stocking up on fresh fruits for her at a market stall. The fear that Akashi was still offended by his disruption of Akashi’s reunion with his “comrades” struck him when their eyes met amidst the crowd, but from the way the Rakuzan captain approached Furihata and extended conversation himself, it seemed that had passed. Maybe nearly jabbing Kagami in the face with scissors had settled him. 

Having missed most of Seirin’s game against Kaijou, Akashi had scrutinized the rest of it via recording. He noted Furihata’s appearance to him with appraising eyes. 

“I did my best?” Furihata managed in reply. To that, Akashi simply smiled. 

In fact, that was how he replied to a lot of things. Furihata rambled when he was nervous, stuttered repeatedly at his worst, and being around Akashi did that to him in the beginning.

“S-sorry, I’m probably annoying you,” he apologized once on their third meeting, halfway through a story about an after-practice outing with the other Seirin boys. 

“No, please keep going,” Akashi said with a smile. He closed his eyes, and it took Furihata a moment to begin again when he felt a loss at seeing the red and yellow disappear, like something had been taken from him. From then on, he wasn’t afraid to look Akashi in the eye. He never knew which eye he liked looking at more, or which was more appropriate for conversation and settled for switching at times, though he tried not to be obvious about it.

In general, he stared at Akashi a lot after that.

“You’ve been watching me,” Akashi commented. It was on their fourth meeting, as they were leaving a tea shop on a Friday night. The stars were out, bright above dim streetlights.

“Oh, uh, does that bother you?” Furihata knew there was no point in hiding it from him.

“It makes me wonder why.” Akashi looked at him then, intense and unflinching, and Furihata didn’t know what to say, so he looked at the ground. He said nothing. Later, their hands brushed against each other and neither moved away.

If Akashi was expecting him to answer, Furihata wouldn’t consider that fair. He was not the anomaly here. He didn’t live in a mansion, play shogi, or ride horses. He was not the legendary former captain of the Generation of Miracles, and did not possess red hair or mismatched eyes. He was Kouki Furihata, who did not understand why this utterly captivating person was fixated on plain ol’ him.

Because of that, he didn’t initiate contact. Akashi always texted him, always inquired about his next Kyoto visit, always told him where they would be going.

“Would you like to accompany me to an antique store today at dusk?” he had asked for their fifth meeting, on a Saturday in February. Furihata never denied Akashi anything, and never wanted to. They hadn’t seen each other in four months, as Furihata’s aunt was healing well post-surgery and up and about on her own. 

As of late, he felt like things were different between him and Akashi. They were texting more often, for longer, and even at weird hours like when one of them would wake up in the middle of the night. Sometimes his thumb would hover over the call button, bright and green and tempting, but Furihata was afraid of how far this, whatever it was, had come. He wasn’t going along with Akashi because Akashi said so now. He  _ wanted _ to do whatever Akashi asked of him.

It was on their fifth meeting, feeling suddenly too close and too vulnerable, that Furihata blurted it out before he could stop the words spilling from his mouth.

“Have these outings been, um, dates?”

They were nearly to the antique store door then, in a dim and empty alley, but Akashi paused and so Furihata naturally did too. Their eyes didn’t meet. The boys stood a few steps away from one another, all the noise of distant passersby silent to them.

Furihata rubbed his cold nose. “I mean, not that I don’t like… this. I just. Don’t understand what you want from me.”

“Is company not reason enough? Do you not enjoy spending time together?” Akashi asked, after a moment.

“But why me?” Furihata said, looking into the mismatched eyes. “We’re entirely different people. Worlds apart, even.”

Cold indifference crept into Akashi’s expression, making Furihata feel like he had spoken out of turn. But it was almost like a trick of the light in the way that the dark glint vanished as quickly as it appeared.

“Kouki, there’s something you must understand,” Akashi explained. “I quite like the idea of us pursuing one another, but I didn’t want to complicate things. What I like about you is how ordinary you are.”

“W-what do you mean?” Furihata, pouting a little, shoved his hands deep into his pockets.

“I mean that you're no shadow and you're no light. But you're like the ground, supporting from underfoot. You’re a constant variable, and it puzzles me just how much that draws my attention to you.”

Furihata blushed. He stared down at his feet.

“To answer your question,” Akashi began, but he didn’t finish. A moment passed in which Furihata tried to will away the heat coloring the tips of his ears red. “Look at me, Kouki.”

Furihata obeyed and found warm gloved hands on his jaw. Akashi’s mismatched eyes drew nearer and disappeared underneath their eyelids, but that familiar loss Furihata felt was quickly replaced by lips against his own, a little chilly from the cold but impossibly, impossibly soft. Like he had never known anything so gentle yet insistent, and his chest filled with warmth as Akashi began to pull away. He blinked stupidly at the other boy, frozen in place.

“How was that?”

Still dumbstruck, Furihata didn’t know what to say. There were too many words to choose from, so he settled on what first came to his mind.

“Good,” he said.

Akashi smiled.

“Then that’s what we are.”


End file.
